No, Dairy Queen Will Not Serve You Human Flesh

These days, a lot of fast food chains are experimenting with a variety of unorthodox and ersatz meats. Beyond and Impossible have taken the world by storm, and Arby’s continues to do… whatever it is that Arby’s does. But for a brief moment recently, it looked like Dairy Queen was experimenting with some truly unusual and unethical burgers.

So let’s put that rumor can be put to bed: no, Dairy Queen does not serve burgers made from human meat. Thank god. Now that that’s out of the way, it’s worth recapping the truly bizarre story that led to such an insane accusation in the first place.

It all started when federal agents unexpectedly turned up at a Greenwood, South Carolina Dairy Queen last week with essentially no explanation given to the manager. Eventually, two people who had nothing to do with that particular Dairy Queen were arrested. For reasons that may or may not have been connected to that raid at the time, the manager was told by a DQ corporate inspector that an anonymous complaint alleged that there was “human meat inside a burger” coming from the establishment.

As it turns out, the raid of the DQ had to do with an illegal money transfer business, that involved about $200,000 in an unlocked safe that was somewhere inside the restaurant. But really, this is somehow immaterial to the human meat accusation.

That didn’t do anything to shut down swirling rumors about the Dairy Queen after the initial story broke. Eventually, county officials (including the coroner, who would seem to know a thing or two about human flesh) had to step in and reassure everyone that human meat was not on the menu.

“I promise you, I’ve never had anything of that nature asked of me. I’ve never suspected anything like that. I can honestly say that’s the first I’ve heard of it, and I don’t see any validity in that at all,” Greenwood County Coroner Sonny Cox told the Index-Journal. “There’s little to no chance of anything like that ever being able to happen.”

Eventually, Dairy Queen’s corporate Twitter account had to step in and squash the rumors as they picked up steam on social media. That must’ve been a fun day for their marketing team.

Hi Matthew! At DAIRY QUEEN, we are very proud of our 100% beef hamburgers. We serve a high-quality hamburger with no additives or fillers.

So there you have it: You’re not a cannibal if you get a burger from the third-tier fast food restaurant known for its soft serve ice cream. But there are plenty of other reasons to question your judgment for it anyway.